Adding Exercise to My Morning Routine

Over the last 12 months, my morning routine has remained fairly consistent. I detailed all of this a while back and even included a precursor to what I’m sharing here, which is the addition of exercise.

I’ve gone back and forth with exercise in the morning. I’m fairly confident that I won’t be adding true resistance training in the early hours of the day – my body isn’t warmed up enough from general movement to be ready for lifting anything heavy.

I toyed around with at-home yoga and short HIIT rides on my Peloton, but neither got me excited to get out of bed. And I want a morning routine that I look forward to each day.

At the same time, I’ve heard a lot of things about the importance of getting our eyes sunlight exposure in the early hours of the day. This helps to optimally set circadian rhythms and has a host of other benefits. I decided that some kind of outdoor activity needed to become part of my morning routine.

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Next-Level Morning Walks

I’ve used my 45 minutes each morning with the kids before work to take walks from time to time. But these walks were designed more to get them out of the house and into fresh air than it was for exercise or sunlight exposure.

Lately, however, I’ve made a few small changes to our walks.

First, I try to do it as close to “first thing” with them as possible. Before waking them up, I get their water bottles filled, pour some Magic Spoon cereal in a bowl for each, and load up our Zoe Twin+ stroller (use my wife’s discount code, Alex+Zoe, for a discount on the best stroller ever) for a walk.

After waking up the kiddos (and changing diapers and insisting on a potty break for Kennedy), it’s downstairs to prepare for our trek.

I change from my comfy “regular morning routine” attire into my GORUCK Training Shorts and throw on my Rhone tank. I put on 10 pound ankle weights, strap on my GORUCK rucksack with a 25 pound plate, and set off, pushing about 75 pounds worth of kids in the stroller.

We have a nice 1.25 mile loop with a good hill that we can walk from our house. This takes maybe 25-35 minutes, depending on how many times my three-year-old wants to get in and out of the stroller.

These walks have been an awesome way to get the blood pumping, and add a mild resistance and cardio workout to my morning routine. On top of that, the kids and I are both benefiting from sunlight exposure and time away from our filtered-air, screen-filled home. Plus I just like hanging out with them.

If you have kids, I’d highly recommend not only taking walks, but adding a bit of weight to your back. The kids enjoy it and it’s a great, invigorating way to kick off the day.

If you don’t have kids and therefore don’t have to push a stroller, try it with a rucksack and maybe even carrying some very light dumbbells for a bonus of increasing grip strength, the latter of which seems to correlate closely with longevity biomarkers.

This is a simple addition to my morning routine that I suspect will pay small, but compounding dividends for as long as I keep it up. I’d encourage you to try it for a couple of weeks and see if you feel it is a better way to kick off your day.